


Something That Keeps You Here

by ineffablefool



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Asexual Relationship, Chubby Aziraphale (Good Omens), First Kiss, Fluff, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), Light Angst, Love Confessions, No Sex, No Smut, Other, Post-Canon, and a smidge of ableist language, and some internalized fatphobia and mention of disordered eating, i can't handle much angst myself so i'm pretty sure this counts as very light, i love you all be safe, so Soft i cannot stress this enough, warning for a coupla f-bombs and a few other choice words
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-17
Updated: 2019-07-17
Packaged: 2020-06-30 00:44:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19841992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ineffablefool/pseuds/ineffablefool
Summary: I crave an infinity of "Aziraphale’s body is perfect no matter what it looks like and Crowley loves him unconditionally and Gabriel can go stick his head in a bucket of paint" soft romantic asexual fics.  So I wrote one myself.Disclaimer: no paint is actually involved.





	Something That Keeps You Here

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to my very first Good Omens fic, which I wrote over several nights instead of sleeping, like a responsible adult. Hasn't been betaed, because when you haven't actually written fanfic since the late 1990s, you don't exactly have folks lined up for the job. Spelling and grammar corrections are welcome! Those are the bits I'm good at already, so I like to have them polished. 
> 
> Like it says in the summary, I need more soft gentle fat acceptance up in here. And an eternal promise from me to you -- you aren't going to see any "aww, but you're not, y'know, *actually* fat!" type dialogue. My writing is an All Bodies Are Good Bodies zone.
> 
> Only-vaguely-relevant title is from "With All My Might" by Sparks, a two-brother musical group about equally as likely to write songs about pineapples as about love. Their videos never make any ding-dang sense, either: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MpHIdxjYfcI
> 
> (Also, why do I lose all my italics when I copy-paste from Scrivener. Why. I hope they're all back now.)

The first time they lunched at the Ritz after surviving the end of the world, the evening was almost perfect.

There was good wine, excellent food, and the only company Aziraphale was interested in experiencing for possibly the rest of time, followed by a parting which panged his heart only a little bit. The only real black mark on the whole affair came after the first course, as he sat back from his emptied plate, a satisfied smile wreathing his face.

"How delightful!," he exclaimed, one hand resting lightly against his waistcoat. "I do so enjoy a good beef tartar."

Crowley, sprawled artfully at the other side of the table and dangling a mostly-empty flute of champagne from one hand, had smiled slightly, eyebrow raised above his dark glasses. "Yes, angel, I can tell."

The words weren't spoken with any particular edge to them, no sign that they were intended to sting, but Aziraphale felt his smile slip anyway. He covered it as well as he could, and the rest of the evening was simply lovely up until it ended. But his hand dropped away from his waistcoat, and he remembered, again, what Gabriel had said to him in the park. "Lose the gut." With that smug, pitying smile that never touched the cold violet eyes.

If Crowley noticed anything unusual after that, he said nothing.

* * *

The next time they dined at the Ritz, everything was splendid until the very end. Then Crowley made some joke, some little quip, about tempting Aziraphale to a second bit of dessert. There was absolutely nothing about this which was different from any other time Crowley had said basically the same thing. But Aziraphale had been sitting with Gabriel's comment, combined with Crowley's unintentional echo (surely it was unintentional?), for well over a week. Suddenly the pleasure of the meal was gone, and he was making some excuse to break off early. And after that, everything had tasted more or less like ashes in his mouth.

Because Gabriel had a point, didn't he, and it was the same point he'd made (albeit less subtly) a hundred times before. Aziraphale had kept himself no stranger to comfort over the millennia. He had too much love for fine food, and dapper clothing, and soft overstuffed easy-chairs in the back office of his cozy old bookshop. He had lost whatever he might once have had of an angel's iron-willed dedication to Heavenly ideals.

His ethereal self had gone soft, and his corporation had softened to match. Including — how he hated such a sharp, crude word — the "gut".

* * *

The third time, Aziraphale had to beg off for a change of plans. So instead of the Ritz, it was the two of them back at the bookshop, and a few bottles of wine, of which Aziraphale did his best to not actually drink any more than needed to keep up appearances. There had, thankfully, been no questions as to why they were in his backroom instead of dining out. He hoped that meant there would be no need to bring up the fact that he hadn't actually eaten in the past four days.

Going without food that long hadn't had the same effect on him that it would have on a human, of course. This body was a mere corporation; a convenience; a tool (and, to a vexing degree, an external representation) of the unearthly being contained within. Aziraphale was simply hoping that becoming the sort of person who _did_ fast would eventually have a matching effect on his corporation's physical appearance. Something beautiful and sharp. A slender frame, hard chin and jutting cheekbones, his face framed by red — oh. Well, no. Perhaps not _that_ beautiful.

He was even getting used to not being able to enjoy a good meal. And drinking little more than plain unsweetened black tea wasn't bad as all that. Why, he'd stop missing his occasional (or perhaps not so occasional) mug of cocoa any day now.

* * *

Aziraphale was swirling his wineglass about, still three-quarters full from the first time he'd poured it, and congratulating himself on a very fine continuation to his new life of self-denial, when an elaborately drunk Crowley slid half out of the other armchair with a thump. "Hey. Hey Aza - Aziphaph — hey you. Why're you not, y'know." He waved a hand in the air. "Drinking! What, 'm I s'posed to do it all myself?"

"Oh. Well." Aziraphale held up his glass and tried on a twinkling smile. "But I am, you see?"

"Nah, y'can't — can't fool me." Crowley pointed directly at him, an effect which might have been mildly intimidating if he hadn't been doing it from somewhere near the floor. "'At's the same... same thingy y've had all night."

"Come now, Crowley, don't be ridiculous. You're far too drunk to be able to keep track of such things."

"I may be drunk," Crowley replied, and then his face took on the dyspeptic look that meant a sobering-up. The demon clambered around until he was more or less upright again, one leg thrown over a chair arm. "Except I'm not anymore. And either way, we both know you've been nursing that same drink all evening." His eyes were invisible behind the dark glasses, but he still managed to fix Aziraphale with what felt like a very piercing glare. "You're a rubbish liar, angel. You really shouldn't try it on me."

Aziraphale set the glass aside as a lost cause. "It's... it's nothing, really, not anything important..." 

"You're lying again," Crowley sing-songed.

"It's _nothing_ ," Aziraphale snapped, "only I have been thinking of something Gabriel said to me, before... recent events..."

The demon twirled a hand, inviting him to continue.

"...and based on that, I have decided to make a few — changes."

Crowley tilted his head to the side. "No more wine?"

"No more... indulgences." He felt himself start to reach for the glass, automatically, and all but slapped his own hand down again. "No more of all these human pleasures and... temptations. It is not befitting of an angel. I must remember that."

The demon made a sound which did not quite make it to an actual word. Thin fingers drummed the back of the chair. "No 'temptations'. 'S that right."

It took a moment for Aziraphale to realize what he must have implied, and he felt his cheeks redden. "Oh! Oh, no, Crowley, I didn't mean... I didn't mean it like that." He rose from his chair (soft, of course, and cushioned, and with extra throw pillows besides, and wouldn't Gabriel have something to say about _that_ if he was here). A few uneven steps, not really looking where he was going, and he fetched up against a bookcase. "It isn't your company I refer to. Only my own... bad habits."

"Seems like maybe my _company_ isn't befitting an angel, either."

Aziraphale whirled to face him, forgetting his embarrassment of only a moment ago. "It is _not that_." They both stared at each other for a moment — or at least, Aziraphale stared at Crowley, who might have been looking anywhere. Then he went on, a waver in his voice, hating it, hating himself, for being soft. _Weak_. "It has simply occurred to me — not for the first time, mind you — that I do not... measure up to... other ethereal entities."

"Nah, don't compare yourself to that bastard. He's nothing next to you."

Aziraphale resolutely tried to squash the sudden fullness in his chest at those words, because they did not mean, surely _could_ not mean what he wanted them to. He did, however, allow himself one glance up and down the beloved figure, before tearing his eyes away. "I was not referring to Gabriel."

He thought he saw motion out of the corner of his vision, but when he looked again, Crowley hadn't left the chair. There was a short pause before the demon answered. "All right, so. What did he actually say?"

Aziraphale told him.

Crowley's lips hardened to a thin line, and for a just a half-second, the room filled with an icy silence. Then he flung his arms into the air. "He _what_? Oh, I'll kill him, angel, I swear I will." He leapt up, stomping around the room and continuing to gesticulate in a way which made Aziraphale very afraid for the contents of nearby surfaces. "That pompous bastard, that — that — God-fearing — I'll tear his _head_ off, right, I will spit Hellfire down his _fucking_ neck —"

"Language!" Aziraphale gasped.

That seemed to halt Crowley, although he was still breathing hard when he turned around. "Fine, language, but he's _dead_ , okay, as soon as I can get at him and his buddies they are _dead_."

"I..." Aziraphale began wringing his hands. This conversation was exactly what he had been trying to avoid. "I mean, you must admit, he... he was right. I am..." He looked at the floor. "Soft."

"Well, of course you are!" Crowley shouted. "Have been since the Beginning, haven't you? Giving your flaming sword away practically the first week! Keeping the rain off a demon you'd only just met! Big ol' softy, you!"

Aziraphale's hands clutched themselves against his middle. "Oh, don't," he choked out, wetness stinging his eyes. "Please don't make fun of me, Crowley. I beg you."

"I'd never. Not for that." Crowley was quieter now, standing by the chair he'd just vacated, hands shoved into pockets. Slouching there with no idea of how very much Aziraphale lo — how much he —

He made the mistake of blinking, hard, and one tear spilled down his cheek.

Crowley appeared before him so quickly that the demon might almost have miracled himself across the room. "Hang on," he muttered, reaching out one tentative hand. Aziraphale's own wringing hands stilled, everything stilled, except a gentle brushing at his cheek, and he risked a glance at Crowley, who appeared to be staring at the wetness now glistening on his thumb. "You're crying, angel."

"I am not," Aziraphale snapped back. A reflex.

"Don't 'I am not' me." Crowley blew on his fingers, vanishing the tear just as he'd vanished an errant blue splotch not so long ago. Aziraphale had worn that same jacket today, of course. It'd been his favorite for nearly two centuries before one brief interlude in the courtyard of a former convent had turned it into one of the most precious objects in his possession.

"I'm not — _crying_ , exactly, I just —"

The dark glasses looked at him, and he stammered into silence. The demon was very close. Reaching out again, through the small gap between them. His hand cupped Aziraphale's cheek, gently, thumb ghosting over the still-damp skin. "You bloody well are. What? Just over what that asshole said to you? Say the word and I really will kill him, I mean it —"

"No!" Aziraphale replied, and the stroking against his cheek paused for an ageless moment before, miraculously, continuing. "It isn't just that, no. I... I have been aware for... some time..." It seemed that there was something very interesting over Crowley's shoulder, across the room, there, and Aziraphale focused his eyes on it, because there was definitely nothing any closer up the slightest bit of note. "Well. I mean, everyone can see it as well as Gabriel, can't they? _You_ can see it." He paused, not wanting to say the truth out loud. "I am a pitiful excuse for an angel."

Crowley uttered a low growl. "You're my angel. You're perfect."

No. No, surely, Aziraphale had misheard that second word. He replied to the statement which must have been the correct one, although his heart had begun beating harder than he'd been aware it was capable of doing. "Even if the rest of the angel host could be considered to be perfect, there's no way that I would —"

"No, bless you," Crowley spat. Aziraphale's attention was dragged back to that horribly beloved face again, because Crowley had reached up with his free hand to pull off his sunglasses. He tossed them over his shoulder, not looking, and then that hand was cradling the other side of Aziraphale's heated face. Golden snake eyes blazed.

Aziraphale felt as though he now understood, somewhat, what it might be like to be a small and very frightened rabbit.

"Not any of those lot, not ever." Crowley paused, took a deep breath, then spoke each word carefully. "You are my angel. You are perfect."

Aziraphale stopped breathing. Stopped moving. Even his runaway heart paused, everything teetering on the edge of whatever the demon might do next.

" _My_ soft little angel," Crowley hissed.

His hands tilted Aziraphale's head, just a bit.

He stepped impossibly closer.

His eyes closed.

And then his lips settled on Aziraphale's, and everything started up again. Heart pounding even harder than before, lungs working, breathing in, in, as Crowley's breath mingled with his own.

The demon's mouth was warm, shockingly gentle, lips slightly parted. Aziraphale had not, of course, spent any time _imagining_ what it might be like to kiss him — certainly not ever, and even moreso not since a certain bombed-out church some eighty or so years ago — but if he, perhaps, had, he might have feared what a demon's kiss would be like. Whether it would be rough, unyielding, the demon only taking from him, leaving him empty.

The melting pressure against Aziraphale's lips now, though, was joyous. It gave, filling his thumping heart with wonder, filling his essence with light. It was — he tried to stop the thought, because surely it was blasphemy, but true all the same — it was the holiest thing he could remember ever experiencing.

And Crowley tasted like the wine he had not allowed himself to enjoy.

The realization brought him back all over again to the thought of himself, a plump, funny-looking little _fool_ of an angel, in any sort of comparison with Crowley. Who was many things, but not soft. Infuriating, certainly. Fallen. So fast that Aziraphale sometimes feared being left behind. So beautiful that he had no right to expect not to be.

Aziraphale's anxious hands were still clenched between them, his forearms just barely keeping their bodies apart. Keeping his rounded middle firmly to itself. It seemed a small favor, and he was glad for it, even though he mourned the need for it.

Crowley broke the kiss, pulling back, although his hands didn't move. "Aziraphale?" he said, very quietly, and Aziraphale told himself he was imagining a slight shaking in that word.

"I'm sorry," he whispered. He definitely did not imagine, then, the way Crowley's eyes widened, the way the demon stepped back from him as if struck. Letting go of his face as though the touch burned.

"Shit. Shit. No, you, uh... you don't have to be sorry, I — I'm sorry. Look, I shouldn't have —"

Crowley scrambled backwards, and when the back of his legs hit a chair arm he did not trip so much as fold backwards. He landed flung over the chair in much the same position he might have sat in it normally. His mouth snapped shut, face gone white.

Aziraphale met his wild gaze for a moment, one hand drifting across his own lips. Which Crowley had kissed. He had just —

There was a feeling in his chest again, something too big to quite fit entirely, so that he had to breathe very deeply as he walked to Crowley's side. Inhale. Exhale. Like the sun, like a thousand suns had all been crammed around his heart.

He reached out with both hands, and Crowley took them, fingers cold and... surely, not trembling.

And Aziraphale pulled him up, his enemy and his friend and maybe something else, now, if he could dare to hope —

"I'm sorry," he said again, his hands still holding Crowley's, not letting him back away again. Not yet, anyway. "I'm sorry that I'm... only me."

He released his grip. "But I suppose it's no longer any surprise to you. You had to _wear_ this body for a while." His mouth twisted. "You know exactly how flawed it is."

Crowley uttered a brief sound which could not properly be called a laugh. "Oh you great stupid bloody — you're not even listening, are you?"

"I hardly think that's —"

The words dried up in Aziraphale's throat as the demon moved toward him again. Aziraphale hoped for, feared another kiss — how would he survive its ending this time? — but instead, Crowley's arms shot around his waist, too fast to stop.

He tried to hold back at first, hold it in, but in the end he couldn't. He let himself relax. Let his own arms wrap around the demon's shoulders.

His soft body, his horrid hateful _gut_ , pressed against Crowley's flat belly.

The sound the demon made now was closer to a sigh.

Crowley buried his face against the side of Aziraphale's neck, his words only slightly muffled. "Angel. Stupid angel. With your stupid sushi and your stupid books and your stupid... stupid..."

"Stupid?" Aziraphale managed.

"Yes." Crowley squeezed his arms even tighter, not lifting his head. "And your stupid beautiful corporation which is exactly everything you are, and you don't even realize." A pause. "'m glad you're _not_ a proper angel. Wouldn't be you, then."

It was a good thing Aziraphale didn't need to breathe, as he seemed to have forgotten how. Even if he hadn't been crushed to a demon's chest, it would have been a challenge. In the current situation, though... yes, really quite impossible. But that was all right, because now Crowley was loosening his grip, just a little, enough to lean back and look at Aziraphale with those lovely eyes. The one part of him that was always the same no matter what form he took.

Aziraphale felt it rising again, that huge wave of light and joy, and, yes, and _love_ in his chest, and now he made absolutely no attempt to push it back down. He became aware that he was positively beaming, which was so eminently reasonable that it only made him smile more.

"Let's get dinner," Crowley said abruptly.

He started, some of that relaxed joy gone. Dinner. Oh. All those little comforts, those indulgences he had been so determined to cut himself off from. Even though he didn't want to, hated the idea of trading his cozy life for austere heavenly devotion. But what did that say about him, that he still couldn't leave behind such intemperance?

Crowley hurried on, interrupting Aziraphale's thoughts, one hand sliding up his back to tangle itself gently in his hair. "Anywhere you want to go. Even that tacky little Thai place where the decor is awful and the waitress always calls me 'dear'."

Trade this for... what. The gleaming, empty halls of Head Office? No.

Aziraphale felt his lips curl upward. "You _are_ dear."

Crowley gave him a frown which did not manage to get anywhere near his eyes. " _An_ gel."

It was amazing, really, how Aziraphale had not realized until now what that word actually meant when Crowley spoke it. He wondered when it had stopped being a simple noun, when it had become something more. Maybe it always had been. He, Aziraphale, had always been soft; perhaps in his own way, Crowley had been as well.

He nestled more fully into their embrace, cheek resting against the demon's shoulder. "Dear. Dearest." Ah. There it was. " _Beloved_." The hand lost in his hair did not change its tempo, but the one around his waist tightened for a second. "I... that would be very enjoyable, yes."

"Good," Crowley murmured.

"But could I please just have one moment first?"

Without waiting for an answer, he lifted his head again, arms retrieved from around Crowley, leaving him standing alone just long enough for doubt to come into his golden eyes. The Aziraphale laid his hands against the demon's face, fingers whispering along his jawline, and the doubt cleared.

"Or it might be several moments, really," Aziraphale mused. "I'm not quite sure yet."

This kiss was much like the first one, except infinitely better.

Aziraphale had never been kissed before today, but he had bestowed them on others as part of blessings — delicate brushings on the foreheads of anointed heroes, the cold lips of the dying or dead. He began this kiss like that, a benediction. His lips trembled as he pressed them against one slender cheek.

"Beloved," he said again. The tremble worsened as he bent to the other cheek.

"Oh, Crowley. Dearest Crowley."

Were the demon's eyes filling with tears? Aziraphale could not quite bear to look at them, they blazed with such light, so he closed his own. "Yes," he whispered, "yes, this will take a while after all."

Eyes still closed, he guided them together by touch. Crowley's mouth was still warm, still gentle, and Aziraphale moved his own against it with reverent tenderness. The demon leaned into the kiss with a noise in his throat which was oddly like a sob, and that wouldn't do, so Aziraphale stroked his thumbs against the stark cheekbones — now touched with a faint dampness, and wasn't this familiar, just a moment ago but in reverse — and opened his own mouth just enough to whisper against the lips he had absolutely dreamed of kissing, a thousand, a million times.

"My Crowley."

He left lingering touches against each corner of Crowley's mouth; the curve of his upper lip; trying to ensure that he got every inch, left no tiny spot unkissed. This process was slowed by the fact that Crowley was attempting something very similar, so that it was in fact quite some time before Aziraphale could bear to pull himself away. And even still, he had to leave one last searching kiss first, like a promise to himself of more to come.

Aziraphale opened his eyes again. They were somehow now sitting together in one of his armchairs, although he could not recall whose choice that had been. He was curled up on Crowley's lap. His hands had migrated to the nape of the demon's neck; his body still lay cradled in the demon's arms. The position should have been awkward — this chair was hardly meant for two people, let alone one of them so padded and the other incapable of sitting up straight. But Crowley held him, snuggled them both together, as if he had been doing it all his life. As if he already knew exactly how their different forms might complement each other.

As if he already knew — oh, good Lord. Aziraphale felt his face warm. "Crowley, when you were in my corporation, did you... well... peek?"

A sly grin spread over Crowley's face. "Peek? Like, did I strip your body down naked and parade it around in front of a mirror for my own salacious ends?"

Aziraphale's face went from warm to Hellfire-hot.

"Nah." The grin faded, and Crowley traced light fingers up and down Aziraphale's side. "Would've been a, what do you call it, breach of your trust. I wouldn't do that to you." Then, smirking: "Oh, you're _scandalized_ , aren't you. I've got to figure out how to get that reaction out of you more often."

"You're impossible," huffed Aziraphale.

"Ah, you love it."

"I love you."

He hadn't meant to say it, not really, even after everything else they had both said and done this evening. But it was true. It was the greatest truth he had ever known, carried in his heart for so many years that he had long ago given up on being able to speak it aloud.

Beneath him, Crowley froze. The gentle hand on his side stopped its travels. There was no more rise and fall of the slender chest against his own. Only Crowley's face still moved, his mouth going slack, his beautiful serpent's eyes searching Aziraphale's.

Aziraphale did not _pray_ that his smile would convey the true, the endless depths of his feelings, because praying might attract entirely the wrong attention. But he hoped. Oh, he hoped.

"I love you," he said again.

Crowley drew a huge, shuddering breath, tucking one arm very neatly around the curve of Aziraphale's waist. He traced the other hand across Aziraphale's face, fingers darting over round cheeks and smiling lips.

"Angel," the demon said, voice barely above a whisper. "My stupid, perfect angel. I have _always_ —"

Crowley swallowed, hard, gazing up at him, eyes glimmering with tears but also with something else which Aziraphale took a moment to place. Wonder. _Awe_. He hadn't seen that from anyone in centuries. Here it was, now, in the eyes of the most important being in his world.

"Always," Crowley choked out at last. "I always have."

There wasn't any need to ask what he meant.

Crowley pulled Aziraphale's head down for another kiss, and Aziraphale returned it, tender and loving and — yes — soft. The way he'd learned to be, the way he'd _enjoyed_ being, and the rest of the angel host be damned. Soft and weak and foolish as he was, he'd still helped stop a war and save a world. Still won a demon's heart. Which seemed even more important when he thought about it, really.

He pulled away from the kiss at last, ending it with one final brushing of his lips against Crowley's, in a way he was already thinking that he would quite like to make a habit. "If you're still up for dinner, beloved, I believe that darling little Thai restaurant is actually closed for the evening. But I'm sure we can find something else." He danced his fingers through the demon's hair. "Oh! Kebabs?"

Crowley nuzzled his shoulder. "Whatever makes you happy, angel."

"Well, that's anything, dearest, as long as you're with me."

"Oh, _stop_ ," Crowley groaned, throwing his head back and rolling his eyes dramatically; but his face was visible, just for an instant, before he buried it against Aziraphale's shoulder again, and the smile there was unmistakable.

Aziraphale smiled too. Oh, yes, he was soft, and he would continue to work very hard to remain so. Why shouldn't he, really, when this was where it had gotten him? When he'd already come so far, just as he was?

Why not, when it had earned him the world?

* * *

Optional epilogue:

It's been four-odd years since the failed apocalypse, and Aziraphale is bustling down the street, the sun blazing his white curls into a radiant halo. He is cheerful and beaming and plumper than ever, what few firm edges he might once have had now entirely rounded away. His same old familiar waistcoat fits perfectly over the soft swell of his middle only because Crowley miracled an extra inch or so of fabric into his entire wardrobe a while back. The two of them were able to confirm through unorthodox but fairly reliable channels that their old sides were, for the moment, not interested in them (reading between the lines, Satan was nursing a galactic case of sour grapes, while God had simply communicated through the Metatron that the pair was not to be touched and then left it at that); and with that fear no longer a driving force, both angel and demon have found themselves almost perfectly content with every aspect of their life. Apparently, what being that sort of person does to Aziraphale's corporation is to make it the same, but even more so. His hair really hasn't been _this_ pale and fluffy since the French Revolution. There is a rumor amongst the waitstaff of his favorite cafe that his eyes are too gorgeous, too incredibly blue, to be anything but contacts. He knows this because Crowley told him about it just to get him to blush.

Everything is not perfect, of course, because this is Earth. Centuries' worth of Aziraphale's fears and doubts were not entirely laid to rest in one not-quite-miraculous evening, and Crowley has traumas of his own, some ancient and some... some much more recent. But they are both healing. And when the nights are long, they have each other. They give each other strength to find joy in each day.

Gabriel does not appear to be enjoying his day. He comes out of a side street just a few feet away, looking harried, his fine cashmere suit not holding up well in the face of unaccustomed field work. When he sees Aziraphale he jolts to a stop with an expression of alarm which warms Aziraphale's heart with a very un-angelic burst of spite.

"Aziraphale. I see you're..." Gabriel's mouth twists for a moment. "Doing well. In this repellent place."

Aziraphale smiles sweetly. "Oh, yes, very much so. And yourself?"

"Here on business. Nothing that concerns you —" the words coming out in a rush — "or your... companion." Gabriel eyes him with contempt which he probably thinks he's hiding. "Some of us are here to work. And know where our loyalties lie."

"I suppose so."

Gabriel gives a pointed look at Aziraphale's stomach. "I see you never lost the gut."

Aziraphale considers this for a moment, longer than it deserves, really, but he does have some small sense of the dramatic. At last he beams. "No," he agrees.

Then he walks past Gabriel without another word, hurrying now to the park. He has a date to feed the ducks with his beloved, and he doesn't want to be late.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! If you needed some absolute sweet fluffy indulgence, then I hope this did the trick.
> 
> If you want to say hi on Tumblr, I'm [ineffablefool](https://ineffablefool.tumblr.com) there, too (and I will probably actually reply). It's mostly just reblogs of Good Omens things that I want to keep around, but there's [original GO-related content](https://ineffablefool.tumblr.com/tagged/ineffablefool-original-post) here and there (some of which is about WIPs!).
> 
> Also, for the record, it is my _dream_ that someday some artist likes one of my fics enough to draw something from it, so if you want to do that then I will absolutely kermitflail from happiness. I have only one request: please don't draw Aziraphale any thinner than speremint does (reference links: ([1](https://speremint.tumblr.com/post/186342035100/i-did-this-instead-of-my-hw-ya-girl-is-gonna)) ([2](https://speremint.tumblr.com/post/186227834150/i-just-need-more-chonky-aziraphale-will)) ([3](https://speremint.tumblr.com/post/186401300745/only-one-1-person-asked-me-my-opinions-on-a-role) and [4](https://speremint.tumblr.com/post/186574829700/finally-finally-done-making-these-refs-my) from her Reversed Omens AU)). Otherwise, the characters can look however you like!


End file.
